Ten Lessons Learned on Photo Safari 2015 (Postcards from the Creative Journey)

The only open door in Bodie, California

Any Project Manager worth their salt will tell you it’s important to analyze performance after the event is completed. Coaches review game film and project managers will do a “lessons learned.” You’ve read the daily reports from this years’ photo safari 2015. Here are the lessons learned.

Tripods are important. We spent a week photographing the mecca of American West Coast Photography - Yosemite and the Owens Valley. I saw one group of photographers using tripods when they were photographing Mono Lake and one fellow using a tripod some of the time while photographing the ghost town of Bodie. Tripods are important in digital photography because you are assured of the exact camera position should you need to make a layered photograph: The layers could be needed for focus blending or an HDR composition. Or, as I thought appropriate a layered composition to remove those pesky tourists that seem to flock to Yosemite. Oh, and the tripod really helps to make the original photograph sharp and clear. What a great side benefit.
This generation’s photographs of Yosemite will be different than those made in the era of Ansel Adams. The reason is simple; the cameras are different. Telephoto lenses for view cameras were not practical for use in the field. Telephoto lenses for digital cameras have incredibly long "reaches" and can provide a new view for this generation. The same place will be seen differently because of new and improved equipment.
Taking a week's vacation to photograph a specific location is always a crap shoot. Weather is the big variable and for this year's photography I guess we have to include natural disasters. The large forest fires in the Sierra Mountains sent their smoke into the Owens Valley, at the least providing a nicely filtered light and at worst cast a smoky pall over the landscape.
California is a big place. It takes quite a while to get from point to point. It takes even longer if you are dragging a travel trailer. You can't photograph and drive at the same time. More driving means less time photographing.
Photographing at first light means you will have to drag yourself out of bed when there is no light and drive a long time to get in place before there is a first light.
Places that should look great at first light might not unlock their gate until 9:00 AM.
Some places shouldn't be photographed. I stopped and visited Manzanar. I did not make a photograph.
I made some photographs that took my breath away. Literally. Photographing at 11,000 feet above sea level will do that. I hope the photographs will take the viewer's breath away.
Small town breakfast cafes have the best breakfasts anywhere. The quantity and quality of all the breakfast meats available are the reason for their superiority. For this reason alone, you should overtip the waitress.
My goodness, the iphone excels at happy snaps. The noisy cricket was not even unlimbered during the entire photo safari. In fact, I received an email from Brooks saying he found the camera in the camper. Unused and left behind. Is more proof needed that iphones are replacing the snapshot camera? That and all the panoramic photographs and about half the other photographs shown in the blogs for photo safari 2015 were made with the iPhone5.